What is sleep talking? We look at the science

Published

2 years ago

February 20, 2023

admin

Nearly everyone has a story about people talking in their sleep. Though it tends to be more common in children, it can happen at any age: A 2010 study in the journal Sleep Medicine (opens in new tab) suggested that around two-thirds of people have at least one episode of sleep talking in adulthood.

Sleep talking is not considered a sleep disorder but a normal variation of human sleep behavior. The International Classification of Sleep Disorders (opens in new tab) lists sleep talking under “isolated symptoms, apparently normal variants and unresolved issues,” along with things like snoring and sleep starts — the sudden jerking motion some people have when falling asleep, also known as hypnagogic jerks.

However, although sleep talking isn’t a disorder, it can have unwanted impacts on a person’s sleep and on the sleep of someone sharing a room or bed with them. Here, we look at the science behind sleep talking.What is sleep talking?

Sleep talking, or somniloquy, is when a person makes vocalizations while asleep. These vocalizations can be full words and phrases, or they can be mumblings, shouts or even laughter.

Children commonly talk in their sleep, with half of all kids talking in their sleep once a year or more, and around a quarter sleep talking at least once a week, according to a 1980 paper in the journal Brain & Development (opens in new tab) . Most children grow out of these episodes of nighttime babble, though sleep talking can recur later in life, brought on by stress or sleep deprivation, Dr. Jennifer Martin (opens in new tab) , a professor of medicine and the president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, told Live Science.

Around half of sleep talking is incomprehensible, audio recordings from a 2017 study published in the journal Sleep (opens in new tab) suggested. The same study found that, out of 3,349 understandable recordings, the word that most sleep talkers said was “no.”

As to whether people tell the truth while sleep talking, that’s mostly a myth, Martin said. “It doesn’t seem to be the case that [people say their] deep dark inner secrets,” she said. Dr. Jennifer L. Martin Social Links Navigation

Dr. Jennifer L. Martin serves as president of the board of directors for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and is board-certified in behavioral sleep medicine by the American Board of Sleep Medicine (ABSM). She is a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Martin received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of California, San Diego, as part of the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program.

Some people sleep talk in their dreams, saying phrases that align with what they later remember dreaming about, a 2009 study in the Sleep (opens in new tab) journal found. But most sleep talking is unrelated to dreaming, as it happens while people are in a stage of sleep with fewer dreams, Martin said.

“Sleep talking tends to occur in a stage of sleep that we call non-rapid eye movement, or non-REM sleep,” she said. “During this stage our brain is relatively quiet, compared to what we see during rapid eye movement sleep [where we dream].”

During REM sleep, the body is effectively paralyzed to prevent the acting out of dreams, said Martin, and this paralysis should stop people from talking. If sleep talking does occur during REM sleep, then it could be a sign of something more serious.

“There is a sleep condition called REM behavior disorder where the system that paralyzes your muscles — really so you can’t hurt yourself during your sleep — is not working properly,” Martin said.

If this is the case, an early diagnosis is important, said Dr. Erik K. St. Louis (opens in new tab) , the head of the Division of Sleep Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. “REM behavior disorder often evolves into violent sleep behaviors like screaming, shouting, punching and arm flailing, which may lead to injury to the patient or their bed partner,” he told Live Science. “It may also be the initial presentation of disease in older adults, usually Parkinson’s disease or dementia with Lewy bodies.” What causes sleep talking?

Researchers still don’t know what causes sleep talking, but studies that measure brain activity can offer some insight.

Recent analyses show similarities between sleep talking and normal awake speech, St Louis said. Linguistic studies, like the 2017 paper in the journal Sleep, have also shown that the properties of sleep talk — the language, patterns, syntax and semantics — follow the same rules as people’s day-to-day conversations and are therefore comprehensible.

These discoveries further neurologists’ understanding of the sleeping brain and the purpose of sleep itself, which remains understudied, St. Louis said.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Sleep talking could be linked to memory consolidation, when the sleeping brain revisits experiences to commit the important ones to long-term memory. A 2018 review published in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews (opens in new tab) suggested sleep talking could sometimes be a verbal replay of the memories the brain is sifting through at the time.

The cause of sleep talking could be different in children and adults, Martin told Live Science. Sleep talking and other unusual sleep behaviors are much more common in kids, and this could simply be the child’s brain “learning what not to do while it’s asleep,” Martin said. It could also be related to the phases of brain development during childhood, she said.

In adults, however, certain conditions and circumstances make sleep talking more likely. For one, sleep talking can have a genetic component: it runs in families, according to a 2001 study published in the journal Psychiatric Genetics (opens in new tab) . It has also been linked with obstructive sleep apnea — a condition in which people experience pauses in breathing, or shallow breathing during sleep — according to the Cleveland Clinic (opens in new tab) .Can you stop sleep talking?

Sleep talking is usually considered a harmless trait, but it can be unpleasant for anyone in earshot — nearly 10% of sleep talking in the 2017 Sleep study contained profanities and swearing.

“Sleep talking has also been associated with sleep disturbance and shallower sleep, so may not be quite as benign as we presume,” St Louis said.

To stop a person talking in their sleep, Martin advises giving them a little nudge. This gentle interruption can stop the behavior, she said.

Sleep talking, along with other sleep behaviors like sleep walking and snoring, tend to get worse when people are sleep deprived, Martin told Live Science. A 2013 study in the Journal of Sleep Research (opens in new tab) showed sleep deprivation increased disturbance in slow-wave, non-REM sleep, which can lead to sleep talking and sleepwalking.

“So, making sure that you’re getting good healthy sleep tends to decrease how often it happens,” Martin said. This means that staying up late to let a partner fall asleep first might actually make sleep talking worse.

This article is for informational purposes only, and is not meant to offer medical advice.

Business

Apple sued by Which? over iCloud use – with potential payout for 40 million UK customers

Published

43 mins ago

November 14, 2024

admin

Apple sued by Which? over iCloud use - with potential payout for 40 million UK customers

Consumer rights group Which? is suing Apple for £3bn over the way it deploys the iCloud.

If the lawsuit succeeds, around 40 million Apple customers in the UK could be entitled to a payout.

The lawsuit claims Apple, which controls iOS operating systems, has breached UK competition law by giving its iCloud storage preferential treatment, effectively “trapping” customers with Apple devices into using it.

It also claims the company overcharged those customers by stifling competition.

The rights group alleges Apple encouraged users to sign up to iCloud for storage of photos, videos and other data while simultaneously making it difficult to use alternative providers.

Which? says Apple doesn’t allow customers to store or back-up all of their phone’s data with a third-party provider, arguing this violates competition law.

The consumer rights group says once iOS users have signed up to iCloud, they then have to pay for the service once their photos, notes, messages and other data go over the free 5GB limit.

“By bringing this claim, Which? is showing big corporations like Apple that they cannot rip off UK consumers without facing repercussions,” said Which?’s chief executive Anabel Hoult.

“Taking this legal action means we can help consumers to get the redress that they are owed, deter similar behaviour in the future and create a better, more competitive market.”

Apple ‘rejects’ claims and will defend itself

Apple “rejects” the idea its customers are tied to using iCloud and told Sky News it would “vigorously” defend itself.

“Apple believes in providing our customers with choices,” a spokesperson said.

“Our users are not required to use iCloud, and many rely on a wide range of third-party alternatives for data storage. In addition, we work hard to make data transfer as easy as possible – whether it’s to iCloud or another service.

“We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anti-competitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise.”

It also said nearly half of its customers don’t use iCloud and its pricing is inline with other cloud storage providers.

How much could UK Apple customers receive if lawsuit succeeds?

The lawsuit will represent all UK Apple customers that have used iCloud services since 1 October 2015 – any that don’t want to be included will need to opt out.

However, if consumers live abroad but are otherwise eligible – for example because they lived in UK and used the iCloud but then moved away – they can also opt in.

The consumer rights group estimates that individual consumers could be owed an average of £70, depending on how long they have been paying for the services during that period.

Apple is facing a similar lawsuit in the US, where the US Department of Justice is accusing the company of locking down its iPhone ecosystem to build a monopoly.

Apple said the lawsuit is “wrong on the facts and the law” and that it will vigorously defend against it.

Big tech’s battles

This is the latest in a line of challenges big tech companies like Apple, Google and Samsung have faced around anti-competitive practices.

Most notably, a landmark case in the US earlier this year saw a judge rule that Google holds an illegal monopoly over the internet search market.

The company is now facing a second antitrust lawsuit, and may be forced to break up parts of its business.

And in December last year, a judge declared Google’s Android app store a monopoly in a case brought by a private gaming company.

“Now that five companies control the whole of the internet economy, there’s a real need for people to fight back and to really put pressure on the government,” William Fitzgerald, from tech campaigning organisation The Worker Agency, told Sky News.

“That’s why we have governments; to hold corporations accountable, to actually enforce laws.”

World

‘He was the light of my life and I lost him’: How a famous surgeon died in an Israeli prison after being taken from Gaza hospital

Published

43 mins ago

November 14, 2024

admin

'He was the light of my life and I lost him': How a famous surgeon died in an Israeli prison after being taken from Gaza hospital

As a famous orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Adnan Al-Bursh spent much of his career fixing broken limbs and broken bodies at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital.

One of the best-trained doctors in the enclave, a photo showing him covered in blood in Al-Shifa’s operating theatre went viral in 2018.

When war broke out last October, he worked around the clock. Pictures stored on his mobile phone show him standing in a hole, swinging a blunt-edged shovel as the hospital descended into crisis.

It had run out of fuel, food and basic pain relief and there was no more space to store dead bodies. Dressed in hospital scrubs, Dr Al-Bursh and his colleagues dug mass graves as the sound of explosions rang out behind the hospital’s walls.

Soon after the outbreak of the conflict, the surgeon, along with his wife Yasmin, realised that their world had changed forever.

“Adnan was needed every time there was a war,” she recalled. “So, I told him, ‘get ready, there will be lots of operations, they will need your help’. He went to hospital to receive the injured and stayed for 24 hours. He did not stop.”

Dr Al-Bursh spent his days in the operating room and slept in the staff room at night.

He also kept a diary of sorts with his mobile phone, documenting the increasingly desperate scenes unfolding around him.

“Despite the pain, we are steadfast,” he said as he filmed the scene in a crowded operating theatre.

Israel said the foundations of Al-Shifa were laced with tunnels where Hamas operated a ‘command-and-control centre’, something Hamas denies.

As Israeli troops advanced towards the facility, Dr Al-Bursh captured the mood inside. Another video found on his mobile phone shows a colleague in the staffroom recalling a painful conversation with his wife.

“I remember that she only asked one thing of me, what do you think it was? That request was ‘just let me see you smile’.

“Smile. It’s the first thing I want to do after this war, if God saves us.”

By mid-November, Al-Shifa was under siege by Israeli troops.

A week later, patients, staff and some 50,000 displaced residents sheltering in the compound were ordered to evacuate.

Dr Al-Bursh captured the scene of long columns of people walking towards southern Gaza.

But the surgeon did not follow them. Instead, he went northeast to another facility – the Indonesian Hospital – still operating in northern Gaza. What he found on his arrival horrified him.

“I was shocked by the size of the catastrophe here,” he said in a video. “There are injured people who have been waiting for their operations for more than ten days. [Their] wounds were severely infected.”

On 20 November 2023, the Indonesian Hospital was surrounded by Israeli tanks and later that evening, projectiles were fired into the second floor. At least 12 people were killed.

Dr Al-Bursh survived with minor scrapes but the front entrance of the facility was torn apart. “The destruction is everywhere,” he said in another video.

A spokesman for the IDF denied that Israeli forces were responsible.

By early December 2023, Dr Al-Bursh had moved to a small hospital, also in the north, called Al-Awda.

A series of pictures, posted on the hospital’s social media page, show him examining patients with fatigue etched on his face.

These are the last known images taken of the surgeon.

The Israeli military surrounded the hospital on 5 December, and the staff were worried about what the soldiers would do.

Dr Al-Bursh worked at Al-Awda alongside a friend and colleague, Dr Mohammad Obeid.

Eventually, the hospital’s director told them that they would have to leave the building.

“[The director] told us that the [Israeli army] have full data of all males aged between 14 and 65 at Awda hospital,” Dr Obeid said, tearfully. “They told him that if all men do not come down… they will destroy the Awda Hospital with all the women and children in it.”

We put this allegation to the IDF but they did not respond.

The men filed out of the hospital and five, including Dr Al-Bursh, were taken away.

“A soldier came up to us and called out Dr Adnan’s name, who was sitting next to me… I felt he was in a very difficult situation. The occupation soldier took him and the treatment was very rough.”

In a brief statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed to Sky News that Dr Al-Bursh was detained by its personnel. On 19 December 2023, it says the surgeon was taken to an Israeli military base called Sde Teiman, which has been used for processing detainees since the early part of the war.

Allegations of physical, mental and sexual abuse are rife. A former camp inmate, Dr Khalid Hamouda, believes many of the prisoners at Sde Teiman were medical professionals.

“In the camp where I was, there were about 100 prisoners. I think at least a quarter of them were involved in healthcare. Some of them were doctors, nurses and technicians.”

Dr Hamouda was put to work by the guards at the base as their helper or ‘shawish’, and remembers being told to fetch Dr Al-Bursh at the gate. When he collected him, his fellow doctor said he had been badly beaten and felt pain all over his body.

“He thought he may have broken ribs,” Dr Hamouda said. “He was unable to even go to the toilet alone.”

The IDF told Sky News that after Dr Al-Bursh was processed, he left Sde Teiman on 20 December and became the “responsibility” of the Israeli Prison Service.

In April, the surgeon was taken to an incarceration facility near Jerusalem called Ofer Prison.

He died shortly after his arrival. News of the surgeon’s death was announced in a statement from two Palestinian prisoner support associations at the beginning of May. The Israelis offered no explanation or cause of death.

Sky News has spoken to people who claim to have witnessed the moments before Dr Al-Bursh’s death.

A prisoner, who says he previously knew Dr Al-Bursh in Gaza, provided details in a deposition to lawyers from the Israeli human rights organisation HaMoked.

“In mid-April 2024, Dr Adnan Al-Bursh arrived at Section 23 in Ofer Prison. The prison guards brought Dr Adnan Al-Bursh into the section in a deplorable state. He had clearly been assaulted with injuries around his body. He was naked in the lower part of his body.

“The prison guards threw him in the middle of the yard and left him there. Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was unable to stand up. One of the prisoners helped him and accompanied him to one of the rooms. A few minutes later, prisoners were heard screaming from the room they went into, declaring Dr Adnan Al-Bursh (was dead).”

While some people might suggest that Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was a terrorist, Daqqa said: “If you want to formally answer this question, he was not charged until now. And many of these detainees are not charged from Gaza.”

In a statement to Sky News, a spokesman for the Israel Prison Service said: “IPS is a law enforcement organisation that operates according to the provisions of the law and under the supervision of the state comptroller and many other official critiques.

“All prisoners are detained according to the law. All basic rights required are fully applied by professionally trained prison guards.

“We are not aware of the claims you described and as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility. Nonetheless, prisoners and detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities.”

Sky News was told by colleagues and Dr Al-Bursh’s wife Yasmin that he was in good physical condition before his arrest.

“He was the light of my life and I lost him,” Yasmin said.

Dr Al-Bursh was prepared to risk his life to save others. This story is one of a countless number, now buried under the immovable weight of Gaza’s recent past.

But Dr Al-Bursh lived and lost his life in a manner that demands acknowledgement, his friends and family members say.

World

Ukrainian frontline commander warns: ‘The world is scared of Russia and losing is not only our problem’

Published

43 mins ago

November 14, 2024

admin

Ukrainian frontline commander warns: 'The world is scared of Russia and losing is not only our problem'

In the courtyard of a farmhouse now home to soldiers of the Ukrainian army’s 47th mechanised brigade, I’m introduced to a weary-looking unit by their commander Captain Oleksandr “Sasha” Shyrshyn.

We are about 10km from the border with Russia, and beyond it lies the Kursk region Ukraine invaded in the summer – and where this battalion is now fighting.

The 47th is a crack fighting assault unit.

They’ve been brought to this area from the fierce battles in the country’s eastern Donbas region to bolster Ukrainian forces already here.

War latest: Russia ready to carry out ‘massive attack’

Captain Shyrshyn explains that among the many shortages the military has to deal with, the lack of infantry is becoming a critical problem.

Sasha is just 30 years old, but he is worldly-wise. He used to run an organisation helping children in the country’s east before donning his uniform and going to war.

He is famous in Ukraine and is regarded as one of the country’s top field commanders, who isn’t afraid to express his views on the war and how it’s being waged.

His nom de guerre is ‘Genius’, a nickname given to him by his men.

‘Don’t worry, it’s not a minefield’

Sasha invited me to see one of the American Bradley fighting vehicles his unit uses.

We walk down a muddy lane before he says it’s best to go cross-country.

“We can go that way, don’t worry it’s not a minefield,” he jokes.

He leads us across a muddy field and into a forest where the vehicle is hidden from Russian surveillance drones that try to hunt both American vehicles and commanders.

Sasha shows me a picture of the house they had been staying in only days before – it was now completely destroyed after a missile strike.

Fortunately, neither he, nor any of his men, were there at the time.

“They target commanders,” he says with a smirk.

‘The world is scared of Russia’

It takes me a moment or two to realise we are only a few steps away from the Bradley, dug in and well hidden beneath the trees.

Sasha tells me the Bradley is the finest vehicle he has ever used.

A vehicle so good, he says, it’s keeping the Ukrainian army going in the face of Russia’s overwhelming numbers of soldiers.

He explains: “Almost all our work on the battlefield is cooperation infantry with the Bradley. So we use it for evacuations, for moving people from one place to another, as well as for fire-covering.

“This vehicle is very safe and has very good characteristics.”

Billions of dollars in military aid has been given to Ukraine by the United States, and this vehicle is one of the most valuable assets the US has provided.

Ukraine is running low on men to fight, and the weaponry it has is not enough, especially if it can’t fire long-range missiles into Russia itself – which it is currently not allowed to do.

If President-elect Donald Trump cuts the supply of military aid, the Ukrainians will lose – it’s that simple.

Sasha says: “We have a lack of weapons, we have a lack of artillery, we have a lack of infantry, and as the world doesn’t care about justice, and they don’t want to finish the war by our win, they are afraid of Russia.

“I’m sorry but they’re scared, they’re scared, and it’s not the right way.”

Like pretty much everyone in Ukraine, Sasha is waiting to see what the US election result will mean for his country.

He is sceptical about a deal with Russia.

“Our enemy only understands the language of power. And you cannot finish the war in 24 hours, or during the year without hard decisions, without a fight, so it’s impossible. It’s just talking without results,” he tells me.

‘Losing will be not only our problem’

These men expect the fierce battles inside Kursk to intensify in the coming days.

Indeed, alongside the main supply route into Kursk, workers are already building new defensive positions – unfurling miles of razor wire and digging bunkers for the Ukrainian army if it finds itself in retreat.

Sasha and his men are realistic about support fatigue from the outside world but will keep fighting to the last if they have to.

“I understand this is only our problem, it’s only our issue, and we have to fight this battle, like we have to defend ourselves, it’s our responsibility,” Sasha said.

But he points out everyone should realise just how critical this moment in time is.

“If we look at it widely, we have to understand that us losing will be not only our problem, but it will be for all the world.”

Stuart Ramsay reports from northeastern Ukraine with camera operator Toby Nash, and producers Dominique Van Heerden, Azad Safarov, and Nick Davenport.